My Dog Ate Chocolate, What Now?

Contact your vet immediately or you can also ask for advice from the local helpline numbers in your city.

If you are calling your vet, tell him/her

How much chocolate your dog has eaten?

What kind of chocolate was consumed?

Quality of the chocolate

When your dog ate the chocolate?

All these information will help your vet to handle the situation better.

If your dog has eaten way too much chocolate, then your dog will vomit it out in some time.

If not, then your vet will give some hydrogen peroxide to your dog to induce vomit. This will remove the chocolate out of your dog’s system.

Once the dog vomits, avoid giving your dog any food or water immediately.

Some symptoms like diarrhea, pacing, extreme thirst, panting and even seizures might show up a bit late. However, if they continue for an extended period, call your vet.

If treatment starts early then, your dog will suffer less and recover quickly.

If large amounts of theobromine have been consumed, it will cause muscle tremors, internal bleeding, or a heart attack.

The onset of poisoning can be checked by severe hyperactivity of your dog.

How Much Chocolate is Toxic?

There is nothing set in stone in this case.

But we can give you some guidelines that can be of some help.

The toxicity depends on the type of chocolate and the amount of theobromine it contains.

If your dog ate white chocolate, then you may not have to worry that much as it contains tiny amounts of theobromine compared to dark chocolates.

Usually, when your dog consumes 100 to 150mg of theobromine per kg of its body weight, it can be considered toxic. Your dog will start facing issues once this threshold is crossed.

For reference, these are the amount of theobromine present in 25 grams of the various chocolates.

Item

Theobromine Levels

White chocolate

Very little

Milk Chocolate

40 to 70 mg

Sweet Dark Chocolate

150 to 170 mg

Unsweetened Chocolate

390 to 450 mg

Dry Cocoa Powder

800 mg

Though the table might suggest that white chocolate is safe, you better avoid giving that to your dog as there are no benefits to it, but still could cause some issues if we are a little careless.

Since 150mg of theobromine can start causing issues in your dog, anything more than 75 grams of milk chocolate, 25 grams of dark chocolate and even a little bit of unsweetened chocolate can be considered dangerous to your dog.

Once consumed, the amounts mentioned above, your dog might get an upset stomach, or cardiovascular problems or even seizures depending on the chocolate they took in.

Does Chocolate Kill Dogs?

The simplest answer to this question is No.

But that doesn’t mean we recommend even the safest dosages of chocolates to your dog.

There are a lot of factors that play a role in making chocolate fatal for your dog. As long as your dog has had very little amounts of theobromine (by mistake), he should be fine.

But if your dog had eaten a whole bar of chocolate, then you better act quick. We are not sure of sudden death, but the poor thing is going to face a lot of health issues even if you manage to save his life on time.

Some of those side effects/discomforts are upset stomach (with vomiting and diarrhea), Irritations, Palpitations, Sweating, and also increased heart rates. Seizures are also a possibility.

Final Note

The next time you plan to devour some chocolates, keep it well hidden from your dogs.

If your dog sees you eating it, he’ll probably want it too. So be careful there.

The most important thing to note here is not to panic. Has he eaten some chocolate? See what kind of chocolate that is.

Is it White chocolate, Milk chocolate or Dark chocolate? Then act accordingly.

Always remember to contact your vet if you are not sure what to do or how to proceed. It is the safest route of all, especially when dealing with potential toxicity as in this case.

We hope this post have given you enough information on the topic of chocolates and dogs.

Did you find this useful? Let us know if you did. Also, ask us any questions using the comments section below!